Card Stock Concepts - The Legends Series
Welcome to our first Card Stock Concepts article. I hope that you will find these deep dives fun, informative, and most importantly helpful to your own investment process. Each month we are going to have articles in a series format. What this means for you as the reader is that you will receive content focused on one singular topic across each sport each week.
This month (or let’s say the next 4-5 weeks) is the Legends Series! We are going to be identifying modern era players from each sport and comparing them to that of their predecessors. They could still be in the league, or already retired, but the impact of the modern era players and their cards are what we want to drill down on, and see quantifiable evidence of where they are now, and where they are headed in the future. This week we are kicking it off with football and none other than Patrick Mahomes vs. Tom Brady!
Our pricing research is done using Sports Card Investor’s Market Movers data. You can sign up for your own Market Movers Subscription to access the data on your own and by using the promo code GRINDERS you will get 20% off your first payment on any subscription. You will want to sign up for Market Movers specifically in order to access the great tools and data, and if you sign up for the annual Market Movers subscription, you will save 20% on the entire year instead of just the first month. If you want a sneak peek at what Market Movers has to offer please reference our show from 12/29/2020 “Card Stock After Lock – Identifying Your Investment Approach”. It will give you really good insight as to how easy the tool is to use and how useful it can be in your research.
When it comes to football there is one name that’s always on the radar, and that name is Patrick Mahomes. He has been electric since they have given him the keys in Kansas City, and it has resulted in record breaking performances, endorsement commercials, a league MVP, and most importantly a Super Bowl win. Most are calling him possibly one of the greatest talents the game has ever seen. When it comes to his current trajectory, and the pieces they have in place for the long haul it’s easy for commentators, analysts, scouts, and sports card investors alike to salivate at the potential he has in his current situation. While his career is still young, the opportunities are there and with those opportunities in place come opportunities for you to invest. Let’s take a look at some current card statistics.
Card Stock Concepts – The Legends Series
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I think it goes without saying that the most popular card of choice right now is the Panini Prizm. If you want to take it to another level, having a Prizm Silver is at the top of that list. If we take it a step further as a collector the PSA 10 is what we all want (Although I do love myself a good 9 at the right price). As we break down this card in particular it has a POP of 849, which is pretty low in the grand scheme of things for cards, and an average purchase price over the past 2 months of $6,402.07. In terms of the most recent sales over the past 14 days there is an average sale price of $8,100. As we can see things are heating up! What these numbers equate to is a spike of 33.5% compared to where it was just two months ago! The closer we get to the playoffs, awards, and Super Bowls the more card prices will increase on a guy like Mahomes because of the potential that’s there. Secondly we will break down his Select Premier Level Silver PSA 10 which has a POP of 86… That’s right you heard me 86 cards on record at the current writing of this article! With such a low POP count and pretty much the top of the line Select product we should see some pretty hefty price tags on this Mahomes rookie right?! Especially when you consider the Prizm silver with a much higher POP count right?! The answer my friends is simply no. Despite these statistics, the PSA 10 of this particular card has an average price of… wait for it… $3,386.75! Now if we look at the last 14 days the average price is $5,400 which results in an increase of roughly 64.9%. Once again when it comes to Mahomes we see that in this card as well things are heating up!
Lastly we are going to break down his Donruss Optic Holo PSA 10 which has a current POP of 546. Right off the bat I see that this is a card that is right in the middle. With that being the case, my expectation is that the prices should reflect this right?! You know what’s coming folks! WRONG! The average price on this card over the past 2 months has been right around $3,209.26. That’s nowhere near the other prices that we have discussed! Additionally, this is the average we’re talking about and based on the other two cards we should expect some pretty steep price movement on this one as well right?! If you guessed WRONG you are in the money! The average over the past 14 days has been a whopping $3,560 for an increase of 3.9%! Yes, I have used a lot of exclamation points in this particular section of the article, but when I see discrepancies like this I get really excited! Based on the numbers we have here, the Optic Holo is lagging big time and we need to cash in before the rest of the investment world catches up! I do believe in Mahomes’ potential, and his ability to win a few more titles. Yes, football is the ultimate team sport, but you definitely need a quarterback and Mahomes is looking like this generation’s Tom Brady. Speaking of Brady, let’s take a little deep dive on him and see what nuggets we can come up with. Below will be a chart detailing the gaps for the Mahomes cards currently.
When it comes to Tom Brady we don’t have to talk too much. The guy has had a fantastic career and whether or not you think it’s Belichick is what helped Tom or Tom is what helped Belichick the career has been stamped. He played for the greatest dynasty of the past 20 years, and has the Super Bowl rings to prove it. He also has an iconic rookie card that I think is the perfect measuring stick for our good friend Patrick Mahomes. It’s his 2000 Bowman Chrome Refractor. I was not able to find a PSA 10 that has sold recently, but what I will do is include the current prices on Ebay, and pull a chart of his most recent PSA 9 sales. The current price on his Bowman Chrome Refractor PSA 10 is….drum roll please… $219,995.00. I’m not saying it’s going to sell right now, but that’s the current asking price. In terms of his PSA 9 there is a POP of only 55. (Sounds similar to the Select Premier Silver if you ask me) There have only been two sales in the past 2 months, but here are the prices: On November 1st one sold for $20,700 and on November 22nd, one sold for $23,433. Those are some pretty nice price tags to sell for, which leads to the culmination of what we are trying to achieve in the Legends Series.
Is Patrick Mahomes too expensive, or is he not expensive enough? My initial answer is with the Optic Holo lagging behind the others, that would be a primary target of mine. It has exponentially more “current” growth potential than the others due to the huge pricing discrepancy. In comparison to Tom Brady and what his career could become I would say now is the time to buy. If nothing else, he has a Super Bowl ring, Super Bowl MVP, League MVP, and will continue to shatter records if he stays on pace. If he wins another Super Bowl, and possibly another Super Bowl MVP we may be sitting here at this time next year kicking ourselves for not investing when he was within a “reasonable” price range. Yes, Mahomes has a lot more career in front of him, but the talent is there, the pieces are around him, and he also has a coach that’s creative enough to keep him in contention. My take is to buy before it’s too late. Below you will find the data for the Bowman Chrome Refractor PSA 9 for Tom Brady.
As always you can sign up for your own Market Movers Subscription to access the data on your own and by using the promo code GRINDERS you will get 20% off your first payment on any subscription.
I want to thank all of you for hanging with us for Card Stock Concepts: The Legends Series. We’ll be right back here next week with a fresh perspective on another modern era vs. predecessor player comparison from another sport. As an additional bonus I’ll have our targets that we looked at today so that you can shop around and see what may fit your investment portfolio. Just click the blue link and it will take you right to what’s available for purchase now. Happy Hunting and we will see you again next Wednesday!
| Sports Card | Description | Target Price |
 | Patrick Mahomes Prizm Silver PSA 10 | Target Under $8000 |
 | Patrick Mahomes Select Silver PSA 10 | Target Under $6000 |
 | Patrick Mahomes Optic Holo PSA 10 | Target Under $4000 |